


With Words (I Thought I'd Never Speak)

by MapleMooseMuffin



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: As much as a grayro can pine, CW for Sylvain's lack of self preservation or care for his own life, Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Child Abuse, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-War, Sort of? - Freeform, aka Miklan is mentioned. Nothing graphic, idk how to tag that but you know the vibe, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29214303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleMooseMuffin/pseuds/MapleMooseMuffin
Summary: Sylvain didn't think he'd get this far.Part of him – the same morbid part that led him in and out of strangers’ beds and prodded at the last bruises Miklan gave him just to keep them there, buried in his skin – wants to address it. To cut the air and ask Felix,What do you think you’ll do now? Have you thought about how you’ll manage Fraldarius? Will you ask your uncle for help? Do you want help? Do you want this?Lord Fraldarius.Felix and Dimitri are carving their own paths now. Ashe and Ingrid too – soon to be formally knighted, once Fhirdiad is healthy enough to bear the brunt of a formal ceremony. Byleth continues to lead the charge and make history from her new position as archbishop. Dedue stays stalwart at His Majesty’s side, but even that is a choice he’s made for himself.The further north they press, the less control Sylvain has over his own life.Are you afraid?he doesn’t ask Felix. Couldn’t take it if Felix answered,No.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Kudos: 48





	With Words (I Thought I'd Never Speak)

**Author's Note:**

> Is that an _MCR_ [reference?](https://youtu.be/8bbTtPL1jRs) In the year of our lord 2021?  
> Sylvain brings out the best and the worst in all of us, okay?
> 
> I started this fic back in 2020 for a Sylvix week I think? The top of my document says "After the war/Future." I don't think past Maple realized how long this would end up being. It quickly turned into a precious thing for me, haha!
> 
> Tune in to the end notes for my thoughts on aro / gray romantic Sylvain. I'm grayro myself. Hopefully I managed to express the weird liminal feeling of being in that queer platonic zone well enough.
> 
> Enjoy!~

The war ends quietly. Once the majority of the Empire’s forces are subdued, a silent ceasefire settles over what’s left of Enbarr. All eyes hang on the heavy doors of the throne room, the seven former Blue Lion students standing at the ready in a half-circle around the door.

The late summer air is so tight with tension it’s as though the entire city holds its breath. No birds call, no horses nicker, no wyverns chirrup. No soldiers stir. Sylvain stands between Felix and Mercedes, both hands gripping the Lance of Ruin tight enough to turn the knuckles white. On the other side of Mercie, Annette’s arms tremble as she clings to Crusher. Mercedes radiates a calming aura, but her own hands clasp tight in front of her chest in fervent prayer.

To his right, Felix stands, body tense like a coiled spring. One hand wrapped tight around the hilt of his sword of Zoltan, the other holding up the Aegis Shield. He’s steady in form, but his eyes are the sharpest Sylvain has ever seen. It’s enough to pull Sylvain’s gaze away from the door, forgetting the lingering image of Dimitri’s thick furred cloak and Byleth’s flowing jacket receding through the threshold before the heavy wood closed behind them.

Battle brings an edge to Felix like a whetstone over a blade, but this is different. It’s been a long time since Sylvain has looked at Felix and thought _fear_ , but the sheen to the swordsman’s eyes can’t be anything else. Seeing Felix stare down a room that very well may hold the end of their kingdom and the death of their oldest friend, with a body poised to fight and eyes that know it’d be too late – somehow that, more than anything they’ve done or seen today, makes this moment real. Felix’s palpable apprehension as they wait to see who will step out of the throne room and claim history is grounding where Sylvain would otherwise feel like he was floating.

This is something only Dimitri can do. Something they have to leave in his hands.

The doors open with a quiet creak that echoes down every street and alley of Enbarr. Felix flinches.

Sylvain snaps his head up to see Byleth standing in the doorway, her head turned to the room behind her. There, stepping slowly forward to take her hand, stands the King of Fódlan. Dimitri, hulking form half buried in a tattered pelt of a cloak, single icy blue eye haunted but lucid. Present.

Ashe lets out the first cry of victory. Then the city around them erupts in cheers and chants. _Long live the king_.

Dedue sweeps up to His Majesty’s side as naturally as a shadow, and the line breaks, Blue Lions rushing forward to surround their prince, their king, their house leader with open arms and tearful cries of relief and joy. Dimitri staggers under the wave of the group hug. Chokes out some protest wrapped in modesty and polite pleas for them not to fret so much over him. And then, when they prove too stubborn to be shaken off, the last of his icy walls of propriety dissolve, and the great lion is buried in a warm embrace that will be immortalized in portraiture for centuries to come.

A gentle sort of chaos ensues from there. Matters to discuss, logistics to settle. Enbarr is smoke and ruins, her castle crumbling in the aftermath of Edelgard’s transformation. Thousands dead, thousands more wounded in battle. Children displaced, mounts lost. All this to say nothing of the government, the territories that lost their leaders. Edelgard replaced most of the Empire’s leading lords with their children – her classmates – and the Kingdom Army tore through every friend and foe who raised a sword against them.

There is still Lady Rhea to find, surely locked up somewhere in the maze of the capital’s remaining buildings. And then – well. Sylvain isn’t sure what then. The past five years have all been leading up to this moment. Now that it’s here, where is there left to go?

The feeling doesn’t leave him after Byleth takes her place as the new archbishop. Nor through the endless meetings on what to do about the assimilated lands. The former Adrestian Empire is divided up amongst the noble houses of southern Leicester and Faerghus. New houses are made, old houses reestablished. Land and title and power signed, stamped, and sealed. And always this empty feeling in his chest.

_What’s next?_

_Where does he go from here?_

It’s a week’s march from Galatea to Fraldarius. The brisk Wyvern Moon breeze brushes Felix’s bangs into his eyes every few minutes, and Sylvain watches him push it back every time with the hand that doesn’t rest on his sword hilts. He’s always found it funny; Felix’s half-hearted and hasty way of pinning his hair back, just enough not to hinder him in battle and no more. It would be so much easier for him to just keep it close cropped, or at least keep it short like Ingrid and Mercedes started doing for the sake of the war. But instead he stubbornly grows it out and resolves himself to shoving loose strands out of his eyes every half mile.

It’s a stupid thing to focus on in the amicable silence between them, but everything Felix does is so very _him_ Sylvain can’t help but be distracted.

The truth is he’s looking for distractions. Anything to take his mind away from what lies ahead.

Felix is thinking about it too, he can tell. Has probably been thinking about it since Dimitri stepped tall out of that throne room and the demand for master swordsmen dropped for the first time in five years. _Lord Fraldarius_ , Dimitri called him when he saw them off. Felix bore it like a hand around his throat.

In some ways it feels like they’re still holding their breath. Like they’re still hanging on it, still waiting for that throne room door to open. The silence stretches on after the dust has settled, waiting to be broken.

This homecoming march is the real end of their war. Dread soaks deeper into Sylvain’s veins with every step closer to Gautier.

Part of him – the same morbid part that led him in and out of strangers’ beds and prodded at the last bruises Miklan gave him just to keep them there, buried in his skin – wants to address it. To cut the air and ask Felix, _What do you think you’ll do now? Have you thought about how you’ll manage Fraldarius? Will you ask your uncle for help? Do you want help? Do you want this?_

_Lord Fraldarius._

The Margrave is in perfect health, Sylvain’s heard. Dimitri isn’t as likely as Edelgard to usurp half the nobility as he rebuilds their kingdom. Sylvain isn’t sure he’d want him to, either.

Still, it’s hard not to feel left behind.

Felix and Dimitri are carving their own paths now. Ashe and Ingrid too – soon to be formally knighted, once Fhirdiad is healthy enough to bear the brunt of a formal ceremony. Byleth continues to lead the charge and make history from her new position as archbishop. Dedue stays stalwart at His Majesty’s side, but even that is a choice he’s made for himself.

The further north they press, the less control Sylvain has over his own life.

 _Are you afraid?_ he doesn’t ask Felix. Couldn’t take it if Felix answered, _No._

The distant guttural roars of a flight of wyverns draws their attention up. Tan and bronze shapes scraping the bellies of thick white clouds, the faint scent on the air promising rain. Sleet, the further north they press. Maybe even snow in Gautier. It’s not too early for the first flurries to roll in. If anything, this flight is running late, slipping south in a race against the coming winter weather.

It feels a little like an omen. Last chance to turn back.

Mercie must be rubbing off on him.

Felix and Sylvain slow their pace to watch the flight pass overhead. Beneath him, Sylvain’s bay mount Manette snorts softly and shuffles her hooves, antsy to keep moving. Sylvain strokes her neck and murmurs something low and soothing.

“Winter’s coming early,” Felix says, watching the wyverns’ shapes dwindle down to the size of birds in the sky behind them. With the sun starting to sink in the sky, Sylvain wonders where they’ll roost for the night. Will Ingrid see them before the day is out?

“Guess we better pick up our pace then. Don’t want to get caught in a blizzard.” Sylvain smiles; reflexive, practiced. The knotted mess of feelings in his chest churns and roils like the vats of poison some of the battalions used to use in the war.

How strange it is to think that: _Used to_.

Felix turns back from watching the flight to cut into Sylvain with his sharp eyes and a twisted scowl, and Sylvain feels a little like he’s swallowed the poison, or his own Ragnarok spell. The full force of Felix’s fury is breathtaking and far more intimidating than any Crest Beast or Hegemon Sylvain has ever faced.

“Stop that,” Felix growls out, like a threat.

“Stop what?” Sylvain means to laugh, but it withers in his throat. Manette isn’t a small horse. From his perch in the saddle, Sylvain towers over Felix, and yet he feels like a rabbit must in the final heartbeat of facing down a hound.

The hunting hounds of Fraldarius are world renowned.

“Stop gritting your teeth like that, like someone’s just sunk their lance into your stomach.”

Sylvain rolls his eyes and his shoulders along with them. Takes up Manette’s reins in one hand and lets the other hang loose and careless.

“You mean _smiling_ , Fe? Most people would call it a good thing. In fact, I’ve been told I have a very charming smile.” Sylvain presses a hand to his chest. “The Goddess only knows how many hearts have broken with a single glimpse of my smile.”

“Stop your inane bullshit for once!”

 _Oh_. He’s _mad_ mad. Sylvain is used to Felix hissing and spitting like a fussy cat, and even lashing out at people when he’s feeling overwhelmed, which is most of the time to be honest. But despite his constant irritation, it takes something serious to make Felix actually angry with Sylvain.

The smile drags out into a grimace. Then twists into a scowl. Sylvain furrows his brow and narrows his eyes. Frustration bubbles up out of the mix of emotions, putting fire in his lungs and boiling through his veins. The march north was already the worst trip of his life, growing worse with every step. Felix picks _now_ of all times to snap at him and list all the things wrong with him?

“It’s always ‘inane bullshit,’ Felix,” he bites back.

Most people back down or storm off when Sylvain caves into the temper constantly boiling just under his surface. Felix isn’t most people. He doesn’t flinch or look away. Just glares, eyes and jaw as sharp as the prized swords at his hip. It makes Sylvain’s skin prickle, his body feeling too small to contain the surge of heat and anger flooding his system.

“Aren’t you the one who’s always complaining about it?” Sylvain bites again. He’s poking a beast here. Angry at nothing and everything and himself and trying to provoke something out of Felix to make up for it. To give this feeling a reason to be here. He knows he’s doing it and he can’t stop. “If you’re so sick of it then why haven’t you left yet?”

Nausea smothers most of the chaos in his chest the moment those words are out, but he can’t take them back. A part of him doesn’t _want_ to take them back. A self destructive, loathing, inky piece of him wants to win, wants to finally see what it takes to snap Felix’s patience, to poison whatever it is that keeps him here. To be treated like Dimitri not so long ago. To get what he deserves.

It’s sick. It makes Sylvain sick, and afraid. _Lord Fraldarius_. He winds his hands through the reins to hide their shaking.

Felix makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. He shifts his weight, taking an aggressive sword stance. Sylvain’s pretty sure he does that unconsciously, like the only body language that comes to him naturally is built for battle.

“If you keep lying all the time, I will.”

“Now I’m lying?”

“You don’t want to go home.”

Sylvain tenses. Manette tosses her head and shuffles her feet, feeling the reins pull in his hands. _Neither do you,_ he thinks to say. A year ago he would have. Would have believed it. Instead, doubt catches in his throat.

Felix’s fringe shifts in the cold breeze, covering and uncovering his right eye. Already growing out since the last wartime haircut.

“It’s not really all that surprising, is it?” Sylvain breathes the words on a laugh, just small enough to shift the air between them. His heart pounds in his chest. He watches Felix through his lashes, braced for whatever strike comes next.

“Then why are you going?”

Felix speaks lowly as well. Usually does. His natural speaking voice is low and rumbling, sometimes a growl and sometimes a purr, but rarely a true roar. A low simmering fire. Makes him sound aloof, when really he’s just awkward.

Sylvain shouldn’t be surprised at the question. It is so very Felix. Don’t like tradition? Don’t follow it. Why bother doing something you don’t want to do just because it’s expected. Sylvain wishes he knew how to do that. Wishes he could pull it off.

Instead, he sighs. Shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck. Half hears Manette snort, impatient, as he half meets Felix’s eyes.

“I can’t just not go home, Felix.”

“Of course you can. No one’s making you march.”

He really believes that, too. The world always sounds so simple coming out of Felix’s mouth. But if it really were as easy as he made it sound, neither of them would be here.

“Why are you going, then?” Sylvain frowns. “Out of all of us, you and I hate our titles the most.”

Felix’s face pinches up between his eyebrows whenever he turns that ever burning irritation inward. Sylvain watches it bloom across his face. Some mix of emotion, two parts confusion, one part defeat. Resignation embittered by frustration.

“What else would I do, if not return home?”

Which of them is he asking, Sylvain wonders.

He offers his suggestion just in case.

“Go out and be a merc? I kinda always figured that’s what you’d do, even before the war. Traveling from place to place, fighting on your own terms, finding people who need you… That kind of life suits you.”

Felix’s sword arm drifts. He presses his palm against each pommel on his hip. Lets the metal dig into calloused skin. He’s done it before. A habit born in the wake of the Tragedy. Sylvain’s never sure if it’s a reassurance or a reminder for him.

Slowly, Felix’s long fingers curl around the hilt of his favorite blade. Sylvain’s watched his life flash before the reflection of his eyes in the sheen of its metal enough times to know which one it is. (For as often as Felix scolds him for diving recklessly in front of death blows meant for his dearest friends, Felix has thrust himself between Sylvain and his certain demise just as many times.)

He keeps his hand there, the same way Mercie might clutch a prayer ring. It’s something solid and bracing, Sylvain guesses. A way to feel anchored, instead of lost and helpless to the tides. Another thing he never got the hang of. Always had to make due with people instead.

Quietly, even quieter than normal, Felix finds his answer.

“There are people who need me in Fraldarius.” Spoken like an oath.

Felix says everything like a solemn swear.

Then he straightens. Shifts his scabbards on his belt and rests his hand again on the pommel, loose and steady. He lifts his chin, proud, strong, mature. So much more than the little boy who cried when his brother left the room. So much more than the lashing out teen who hissed and spat in the face of emotion.

They’re _older_ now. Lost five years to the war. For the first time since Garreg Mach fell, Sylvain feels it, like a kick to the chest.

Felix, Ingrid, Dimitri. They’re adults now. Men and women. Veterans. Knights, lords, kings.

What does that make him?

“Well, I’ll have you know there are plenty of people who need me back in Gautier, too.”

Felix makes a face he normally reserves for sweets. “To warm their beds, maybe.”

And it’s true, but it still stings to be told outright he isn’t wanted.

He grins sharp enough to cut glass.

“Don’t forget giving them heirs. I’ve got some serious breeding to do. For the good of the country!”

“Fuck that,” Felix grunts.

“That’s the plan, yeah.”

It comes reflexive and stupid, like everything else Sylvain hurts himself with. A double edged sword. Felix half snarls at the slice of the blade and snaps, livid and disgusted.

“You didn’t fight and risk your life for the past five years just to throw it away like that. Stop playing the martyr or I’ll hang you myself!”

Then he stomps ahead, like Sylvain could ever let him walk away.

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who kept me alive all that time,” Sylvain says for Manette’s benefit. Felix must be too far ahead, and too angry, to hear.

They cover another mile and a half before Sylvain finds the energy to sidle up alongside Felix again. The walk has done nothing for the younger’s mood. He grits his teeth and curls his fists the first time Sylvain opens his mouth, which is enough to make him shut it again.

They finish the mile side by side, still in silence.

“To be honest,” Sylvain says. Felix doesn’t bite his head off, or flinch, or spit, so he takes it as permission to continue. “To be honest, I always figured I’d die on the battlefield before we made it out of the war. It wasn’t until you freaked out on me in the infirmary that time – when we promised again? That’s when I realized that maybe I should try thinking ahead.”

Sometimes, when something sharp and emotional finds his blind spot, Felix barks out the first words he can find to capture the surprise. He lives, breathes, and feels with so much intensity, and when it’s pulled out of him suddenly it’s like a tsunami. Overwhelming and frightening.

Growing up alongside him, fighting and living beside him, Sylvain has come to learn the warning signs. He knows when and how to brace against a shouted _what the hell is wrong with you_ , how to read it as the _you’re scaring me_ it belies. Sylvain braces for the impact. But nothing comes.

Felix stares at the path ahead. Every muscle in his body is tense. The cutting gust of wind picking up around them makes a curtain of his hair and hides his face from Sylvain. But in the sparse glimpses he manages to catch, he sees a pinched brow, a twisted frown. Bright, hurt eyes.

He doesn’t know what to do with that.

“I didn’t think it was really a secret. You and Ingrid both were always after me for it. At first I thought you guys were just pissed I didn’t trust you to take care of yourselves, but then I’d take a hit that would have killed you, and you’d come back more upset. I thought you knew…”

Mercie knew. Dedue _got it_ , which in retrospect is maybe a cause for concern. Hopefully with the war over, King Dimitri’s need of him in far less violent contexts will take care of that on its own. Or maybe Sylvain should mention it to the archbishop. Goddess knows Byleth would find a way to keep her students safe.

Sylvain always kind of assumed that’s why she deployed him near Felix and Ingrid every battle. While her hands were full with a crazed prince, she could count on the three of them to keep each other alive without her.

Felix still hasn’t said anything.

Sylvain fidgets with the reins. “C’mon, Felix. Don’t tell me you _didn’t_ bring up our old promise to try and keep me alive.”

Felix’s gloves creak with the way he curls his fists. Sylvain misses the flash of a warning sign.

“ _I’_ _m_ not the one who brought it up. And I didn’t go along with it to have you bind your life to mine!”

It’s like swallowing coals. Or raking them up out of his throat.

Sylvain is half turned in the saddle to face Felix, who stands still in the road, trembling with fury, or something else. It’s hard to read him through the pounding of Sylvain’s pulse in his ears. The throbbing burn scars in his throat. _He doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t mean it,_ that logical voice inside Sylvain says. _He doesn’t mean it the way it came out. But he should._

“Don’t sit there and breathe for _me_ ,” Felix snaps. “Don’t eat to keep _me_ satisfied. Don’t _live_ for _my_ _sake_!”

“I’m _not_!” Sylvain bites back. His face is hot. His hands are shaking in the reins. _I’m not_. _I’m not_.

_Then why does marching home feel like walking death row?_

“No? Then what are your plans?” Felix’s barking anger roils like the sea into a calmer wave. Deceptively soft and even, while the danger lurks beneath the surface.

Sylvain knows he doesn’t have an answer that will satisfy him. He barely has an answer at all.

“I’ll go back to Gautier.”

“And do what?”

“What do you think, Fe?”

“I _think_ you should want more than to be your father’s pawn!”

“Well it’s not living for _you_ if I’m living for _him_ , is it?”

“I want you to live for yourself!”

In the valleys like this, a shout can carry for miles. Felix’s words echo around both sides of Sylvain’s skull.

“What do _you_ want, Sylvain? Because it isn’t this.” He gestures roughly at Sylvain himself. Like he can encompass all the apathy and anxiety in a jerk of the arm. Sylvain is suddenly made conscious of the way he’s slumped over his horse and straightens up.

“How’m I supposed to answer that, Felix? There’s nothing I can say that could actually happen.”

“Not if that’s your attitude,” Felix grunts. Finally, he takes the few steps to stand at Sylvain’s side again. Probably just so he could level him with that venomous scowl.

“This isn’t just about me.” Sylvain curls his hands into fists around the reins. That bitter anger is on the back of his tongue, tasting of blood and bile, the cold metallic flavor of a crest activating.

There are a thousand reasons Sylvain stopped letting himself want things. It isn’t something Felix’s rage can unravel just because he doesn’t like Sylvain’s answer. If it were that easy, Sylvain would already have done something about it, wouldn’t he?

Felix draws his sword with a smooth _shick_. Manette flicks one ear at the sound and shifts her weight. Expecting war orders.

“I’ll march on Gautier myself if that’s what it takes.”

“Felix!”

“I’m lord!”

Felix cuts through the air with a hard and authoritative motion. Sylvain hears the wind that chases the blade, a high _whoosh_ of death. Felix is deadly serious. He always is.

“I’m a lord now, I have the authority. Ingrid would back me, too. We _know_ the Margrave isn’t worth shit. You’re smarter, better suited for the job, if you’d just take your head out of your ass long enough to focus. I could march to Fhirdiad tomorrow and have Dimitri-”

Sylvain’s anger is washed out by a cold wash of panic.

“Felix! Don’t-”

“-exile him. Strip him of title. Or pressure him to relinquish the title. At least they got _that_ right in the damn Empire-”

“I’m not worth all that!”

_Whoosh._

Sylvain finds himself nose to nose with the tip of Felix’s sword.

“Say that again,” Felix growls, “and I’ll cut you down myself.”

Slowly, Sylvain drops the reins and raises his hands for mercy. The sword doesn’t waver.

“I don’t get why you’re so mad that I don’t want you starting a civil war on my behalf.” Felix has no regard for politics, but even _he_ has to realize the Margrave wouldn’t take forced resignation lying down.

But Felix just snarls and slashes his sword down and away from Sylvain and his mount. He practically gnashes his teeth as he spits out a familiar insult.

“You’re-”

“Insufferable, I know.” Sylvain sags, no longer held up by the (immediate) threat of being skewered.

“A blind fool,” Felix corrects. He sheathes his blade with force, which is a little unlike him, even with tempers running high. Felix is always careful with his weapons. Especially that Sword of Zoltan.

“Go on and prostrate yourself, then. Grovel like the cowardly dog you are in your father’s halls and let them breed you off like one, too! I’m not fighting for someone who’s too content in his suffering to raise a lance alongside me.”

Felix’s tongue is kept as sharp as his weapons. And he always knows just how to land a blow.

The words cut straight past Sylvain’s underlying anger, with himself, with the world. The people who know him well – Ingrid, Dorothea, Mercedes – were always able to pull back the armored veneer of a womanizing fool he wore and expose that fury in him, like a raw nerve forced into the elements. But Felix cuts deeper. Past the bullshit, past the anger about the bullshit, and straight into the heart of the matter.

Sylvain _is_ a coward. Even on the battlefield, he was always running from something when he threw himself in front of enemy blades.

His voice cracks when he pleas, “Felix, come on. Don’t be like this.”

“Like what?” Felix barks back. The way his arms cross over his chest is a tell, though. A minuscule admission of guilt. Still not enough to make him take it back, yet, but it’s there.

“This is your chance to remake your life into what you want it to be,” he says. “And all you’re doing with it is choosing to wallow in your self-made misery.”

“I’m not wallowing,” Sylvain mutters. It’s met with a hard look of disbelief and a judgmental silence. “I’m not _wallowing_ , Felix. I don’t have any options here. Even if I knew what I wanted, I wouldn’t be able to have it.”

“Why not?” Felix challenges.

What can Sylvain say?

_Because my father would stop me? Because ousting the last living man who held down our kingdom’s borders while Lady Cornelia invited the Imperial Army into our nation’s capital would spark a second civil war? Because I was born with a rare crest and there’s no one left to pass it on?_

_Because if I try to imagine a future for myself, all I can see is that moment in Enbarr. You and me standing side by side at the end of the war._

They stand off in a silence that stretches for too long. Thin patience wears through. Felix makes a derisive, disgusted sound and walks ahead.

They travel the rest of the evening like that, with Felix marching forty feet ahead and a heavy stone weighing down Sylvain’s stomach.

Making camp comes as second nature by now. They gather kindling before they’ve even found their spot, so when Sylvain finally dismounts in a clearing a short ways off the road, it’s just a matter of arranging their bedrolls and a circle of stones for the fire pit. Felix has stoked them something strong and sturdy in the time it takes Sylvain to feed his mount and ease off her armor.

They only speak as is necessary. Between the years they’ve spent memorizing each other’s nature and Felix’s colorful range of expressive grunts and scowls, that measures up to a total of six words before dinner is finished and the mess kits are packed away.

Sylvain tries not to think. That’s business as usual. Tend the horse, cook the food, eat and sit long enough to ease the ache of a day in the saddle, then lay back and pray you won’t dream. Sylvain’d been doing that well before the war ever came.

The problem is practice has never made perfect. It takes a warm body or a concussion to coax him into sleep without running through the gauntlet of anxieties and grudges rushing like a riptide beneath his surface.

 _What you want it to be_ , Felix said. It just keeps echoing. _What the fuck does he want his life to be?_

There are answers, but they aren’t any good. Not anything of enough substance to build an action plan around. He wants to be freed from the pressures of having a crest. Not realistic – what’s he gonna do, pull it out of his blood? _Maybe_ Hanneman or Linhardt would have an answer to that, he has no idea. He always avoided them like the plague at the academy. Thinking about it, he’s not actually sure whether they survived the war or not. That sours his mood just that little bit more.

Anything else he wants is beyond his ‘right’ as a noble. He’s not as brave as Ingrid, or even as stubborn as Felix, not enough to refuse to marry anyone and let his bloodline end with him. At least Ingrid has brothers, Felix an uncle who could produce heirs. Maybe their crests would be lost, but their houses would endure. Sylvain is the last of the Gautiers. It’s the only reason the northern peasants tolerate him.

He has to raise an heir. And if he has to raise an heir then he might as well produce it himself. He’s already proven he has no qualms about the _practice_ of conception, hasn’t he? To refuse and adopt would be a clear defiance of the Gautier crest, and then… What? What happens when there’s one less stupid exalted crest in the world? What difference does it make? What’s the point of them, anyway? All that so called power. What’s it ever used for?

It makes his head ache, all the back and forth of it, from his heart to his memories to the lessons weaved into him from birth, the mark of a spoiled childhood and the scars from the brother sacrificed to get it. Would Miklan have still been a bastard of a man if Sylvain hadn’t had a crest? Or would he have grown into a man like Felix’s uncle, or Dimitri’s?

It doesn’t matter. That’s not what this is about, in the end. Except it is, at least a little bit.

Sylvain groans and drags himself up out of his bedroll.

Felix is sitting by the fire, keeping watch and sharpening a sword. He does that when he thinks. It keeps his hands busy. Otherwise they’d fidget and itch until they distracted him and broke his focus. Sylvain doesn’t know why he knows this, but he does.

Felix would know that he’s the opposite. Sylvain fills his hands with books and girls and yes, even weapons once the war caught up with him, all to keep thoughts _away_. That’s probably why Sylvain is shot a narrow eyed look when he picks up a lance and settles to sharpen it on the other side of the low burning fire.

Still, they don’t say anything. The rhythm of their whetstones sliding over sharpening metal is the only sound between them. Sylvain’s fallen asleep a hundred nights to that sound, curling up with just a bedroll on a forest floor, in a cave, in a tent, and trusting Felix to keep them safe for one more night. Without thinking he’ll match his breathing to it, the rhythms of his body syncing up with the rhythm of Felix’s hands. It’s lulling in the way crickets are, or waves on the shore. The way a mother’s lullaby should be. A sound that means safety.

It’s not tonight.

Every smooth _shick_ of whetstone on metal echoes with the sound of Felix drawing his sword on Sylvain hours before.

 _I’ll march on Gautier_.

 _I’ll cut you down myself_.

The sound grates on his every nerve. It gets louder the tighter the silence stretches. _Shick_ . _Shick._

_A blind fool!_

_Shick._

_Cowardly dog!_

_Shick._

_Lord Fraldarius_.

Sylvain drops his whetstone.

He’s _angry_ , and jealous, and angry at himself for feeling jealous when Felix is his best friend, is the most important person in his life. The only reason he’s here at all.

Felix didn’t _ask_ for his father to die. He never wanted to be the lord of his lands or do anything more than swing a sword and protect his friends. But he’s already settling into it so well. Facing the new world head on and unwilling to back down.

He’s always been stubborn, and brave.

Sylvain has always been a coward.

“What’s wrong with you?” Felix asks. Sylvain looks up from his clenched fists. He hadn’t noticed Felix stopped sharpening his sword.

“ _Nothing_ ,” comes to tongue first. It rings hollow in the air. Felix is staring at him, intense as always but with the tight furrow between his brows. His concern is always painted in shades of anger.

Sylvain swallows down the singe of his frustration. Takes a deep breath in. Tries to be brave.

“What I want,” he croaks. He scowls at the embers between them, fists clenching again. Why is this so hard? Why does honesty always feel like gouging something out of his chest?

Felix waits. Sylvain listens for the idle _shick_ of the whetstone again, but it doesn’t come. Normally Felix would have snapped at him by now; he should have snapped when Sylvain barked at him for just asking a question. But he didn’t. He’s just been sitting quietly, patiently.

Maybe he’s trying, too. Sylvain clears his throat. It wouldn’t do to waste Felix’s effort, would it? Felix has come halfway. Sylvain will meet him there.

He sets aside the lance and leans forward, elbows on his knees, glaring now with determination rather than fury at the embers of the dying fire.

“What I want is impossible.” Coming half way means being honest, not optimistic. Felix is sick of lies, after all.

“Tell me anyway,” Felix says.

It’s not patient or gentle. It’s a demand.

Sylvain grits his teeth and digs his fingernails into his palms because they both know it works on him.

“I want… I _want_ a world without crests.” Sort of. It’s bigger than that. It’s smaller than that, too.

Sylvain glares at Felix but not _at_ him and struggles to find the words.

“I’m sick of feeling like I don’t have a say. I’m sick of being measured and weighed like a weapon or a thoroughbred, something to be used until it breaks and then tossed aside. I want to _matter_ , and not just because someone cares about the _idea_ of me. I want… I want… I want to be _known_ , to be _seen_.”

He loses steam. His hands are shaking. His stomach twists and turns in knots, and suddenly it’s too much, to hold Felix’s gaze. To be seen.

He feels exposed in ways he’s never gotten used to. _I want to be known_ , except giving up even this little fragment of himself makes him feel sick. It’s not what it should be. He’s never been what he should be. He tried, and it left him freezing on a mountain side, falling down a well. He stopped trying, started pretending he was already there, but he could only keep it up for a night at a time, in the dark with a girl who only knew his name. Cut and run, rinse and repeat.

Every fragment of his real, broken self is lined with poison, and it burns. Felix knows.

“By who?” he asks. “Who do you want to see you? Who do you want to be known by?”

_No one. Everyone._

_By you._

More than anything, Sylvain wants Felix to understand. More than anyone, Felix does.

A funny thought drifts through Sylvain’s head. _This means something_ , it says. He’s felt the feeling before, but never been able to put it together in words. _Something_ hardly even counts as a word.

“What else is impossible?” Felix asks when Sylvain fails to answer.

Sylvain meets his gaze. Shaky, but holding.

“I can’t just run away from everything. I can’t take over Gautier anytime soon, and I can’t just leave it in the hands of my father, either. I can’t up and leave our people to his crest toting mercy, and you aren’t going to abandon Fraldarius when they need you-”

“What’s what I do have to do with you?”

Sylvain’s voice falls away. Why _did_ he mention Felix? Where was he going with that?

_Him and Felix. Side by side, white knuckled, breaths heaving. Together at the end of the world. Or, war. The end of the war._

Except, in his mind’s eye, they aren’t half mooned with the rest of their house, waiting to see Dimitri. It’s just them, alone at the end of a fight. Victorious. Together.

_You and me, Fe. We’ll always be together. Even when we die, we’ll die together, too._

_You can die whenever you please, but I’m not going down with you._

“Nothing,” he says quietly. If Felix hears, he doesn’t react. Sylvain sits and wrings his hands and tries to remember the last time a lie sat so awkward in his throat.

Maybe it’s the _something_ making it harder to walk away. Maybe it’s because Felix knows him, has known him since they were children.

Sylvain sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “Everything. I don’t know. I feel… Like there’s this path laid out for me that I don’t want to take, and then there’s this. Wilderness. Some unknown world I’d be left wandering in, unarmed. I can’t get through that. Not alone. I don’t want to do it alone.” His voice trails, quieter with each confession until he’s sure it must have been buried under the soft crackle of the dying fire.

That _something_ , this confession. _I can’t do it alone_. The pieces start to line up into a clear picture of something he still doesn’t understand. Like reading in great detail about an animal native to Brigid without having ever seen it himself. _Love,_ he thinks. Is this what love is? This feeling of loss waiting at the end of their journey? This strange codependency anxiously thrumming inside him?

After five years of living, fighting, breathing side by side, Sylvain isn’t sure how to define himself without adding Felix to the mix. He doesn’t know how to be ‘himself’ if Felix isn’t nearby.

 _I can’t do this alone_.

Can he live without Felix? Probably.

Does he ever want to? …well…

“Who said you would?” Felix asks. Not loud, not quiet. Sure and even in its plain intent.

Maybe this is love. It doesn’t feel different, except that it means more. Everything Felix says or does is significant to Sylvain. Even the hours spent drilling the same combat techniques. No moment spent with him has ever been a waste.

Maybe it’s another notch for the growing list. Fuzzy things Sylvain thinks he wants, but isn’t sure how to get. Isn’t even sure he _should_ have them.

What even would it be, to ‘have’ Felix? When he’s going in one direction – _Lord Fraldarius –_ and Sylvain is just a spinning cart wheel caught in the mud?

He smiles as much as he can manage, and gives a weak laugh when it doesn’t feel like enough.

“I know you’ve always got my back, Fe. Felix. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’ve put up with an idiot like me for this long. That you’ll still put up with me going forward.”

Felix snorts, something _harumph_ -y that should sound arrogant and dismissive, except for the little fond smile he doesn’t quite bite down. The sight strengthens Sylvain’s own little grin.

“You’re my best friend,” he adds. “It’s not fair of me to ask more than that.”

Quick and subtly as it came, Felix’s smile leaves. He frowns again, pinches his brow again. Leans in a little more and looks at Sylvain with his sharp and searching eyes.

“Ask more?”

Sylvain’s mouth runs dry.

Social cues have never been Felix’s forte. Thank the Goddess. He gives Sylvain a long, hard look until Sylvain feels heat crawling up the back of his neck like ivy climbing a terrace. But he misses the hint. Sylvain’s Freudian slip.

“You haven’t asked for anything,” Felix says. Sylvain’s heart stutters back to work, his breathing evens out from being held. He missed it. Good.

“You just assume things,” Felix raises his voice a bit. More stern, maybe a little frustrated. It’s a tone he often takes with Sylvain. It’s normal. “You always do. You assume people only want you for your crest. You assume you’re only good to us as a shield. You assume you can’t get out of your family’s bullshit. We spent the past five years in a war. We won. Don’t take up old cowardice now. Whatever it is you want, ask for it.”

For half a heartbeat, Sylvain thinks Felix is going to cry. His voice creaks with frustration. The same crack that echoed through their childhood. Fights with Dimitri, surprise sleepovers after Miklan’s acts of violence, the year Glenn left for the academy.

The ghost of a boy who cracked like glass under pressure lingers in the shadows of Felix’s face. For just that moment, Sylvain’s too caught up on it to think. His tongue moves without him.

“I want you.”

It’s been ten years since Felix last cried, though. He doesn’t break that streak now.

He doesn’t even look surprised. The furrow in his brow hardly flinches, his mouth still twisted in one of his trademark frowns. If Sylvain has a hundred different smiles, Felix has a thousand frowns. This one reads _missed the point_.

“You have me,” Felix says flatly. And Sylvain could walk away with that. Let it go. Smile and laugh and skirt around the problem until it’s not a problem anymore. But he wanted to try bravery.

“No, I…” That gouging feeling. He curls his fists. “I want you _more_. Like, like…”

Like what? What does he know about this half-feeling, this liquid thing slipping through his clutching fingers. This _something_ . _Something_ isn’t enough to go on.

This was so much easier when it was all pageantry and show. When it wasn’t so earnest, when it didn’t matter so much. It’s never mattered like this. It’s never hurt to say.

“…like I’ve never wanted anyone before.”

It’s an earthquake, a hurricane, a typhoon. It’s nothing. Quiet and small and life changing except for the fact that nothing changes. Felix doesn’t even blink.

“You have me,” he says again, “more than anyone.”

 _He doesn’t_ get _it_ . _He doesn’t_ see.

Sylvain’s nails bite into his palms.

“Felix,” he grits. He pleads. He’s trembling. “I’m saying I- I don’t. I think? Maybe? I might be in love with you.”

The last comes out in a rush of breath and a flinch. But still Felix doesn’t move or blink or smile or change.

“Then stop trying to marry someone else,” he says. Flat and even, matter of fact. A soft lipped frown, impatient.

“What?” Sylvain doesn’t understand this non-reaction. “Be serious.”

“I am serious,” Felix barks.

“I’m confessing my– I don’t know,” Sylvain barks back. Then he laughs, hollow, and tugs at his hair, dragging his eyes up to the stars. “I’ve been running from this kind of thing for so long I’m not even sure I’d know what it felt like. But sitting here, thinking about what I want… When I try to imagine what love – real love - would be like, I. I just think of you.”

“And I already promised my life to you.”

Sylvain huffs. “That’s different.”

“You think I’d die for anyone else?” Felix snaps.

 _Y_ _ou can die whenever you please,_ Felix said once in the infirmary. But the fear that stripped his voice before Sylvain opened that door…

_Even when we die, we’ll die together, too._

And the tiny, shuddering sobs that prompted the vow in the first place.

_Don’t go where I can’t follow._

_Lord Fraldarius_.

_Felix the crybaby._

Felix had never been good with words. But his actions are loud and clear. When did Sylvain stop listening?

A life time of loyalty. Of defending each other, risking their lives for each other. Tearing through any foe who stood between them. No Crest Beast nor man nor war nor tragedy ever kept them apart. Is that love? Romantic or platonic or something else? Something. Something.

Something solid. Something unending. Something to hold on to.

“I don’t want to be married off like a stud horse.” Sylvain looks back down from the heavens. He’s breathless when he speaks, when he finds Felix’s eyes. Why? And what’s this manic stirring between his ribs? The gears in his mind whir, too fast, too slow, while his tongue stumbles to catch up.

“Then don’t.”

“I want to make peace with Sreng,” Sylvain says faster.

“Then do it,” Felix answers just as quick.

“I want you.”

“You have me.”

“I. …I guess I do.”

The excitement rattles around in his chest. But the world slows. The embers fizzle down to their last light. Manette huffs soft in her sleep. Felix reaches for his whetstone without breaking their gaze, and Sylvain can just make out the wary tilt to his lips.

“Stay with me in Fraldarius,” he says. Turns the whetstone over and over in his hand. Thinking. Anxious. _“_ For dinner, for a week. Whatever, I don’t care. Just don’t run off the second you see me through the door.”

_Lord Fraldarius._

All this time Sylvain was worried about being left behind. Like Felix was walking boldfaced into a new future. He didn’t realize he was waiting to hold the door open, looking over his shoulder to make sure Sylvain was following.

“Can I kiss you?” Sylvain asks suddenly. Felix startles.

“At dinner?”

“Right now.”

“Oh.”

Sylvain brushes aside the lance by his feet. Stands. Moves slowly around the fire. Felix gives no protest.

“I should have expected that,” he says when Sylvain sits beside him.

“I don’t have to,” Sylvain offers. Finds it’s true. He wants to, but it isn’t a burning need.

He and Felix could sit here and stare at the stars, never touch once for the rest of their lives, and that would be okay. So long as they’re together.

_Side by side at the end of the world._

“I didn’t say I was opposed,” Felix says. Laughs, really. Soft and warm.

 _This_ , Sylvain thinks. _This might be love._

“You told me not to assume.”

“Just get over here.”

Felix grabs him by the shoulder none too gently and speaks the way he knows best: through action.

Wrapping his arms around Felix, Sylvain thinks, _It doesn’t matter if it’s love or some other_ something _. This is ours. That’s everything it needs to be._

**Author's Note:**

> A brief note on grayro Sylvain: Not all aro and gray aro folk have the same experiences, etc. I did not write Sylvain as grayro because of his bed hopping or commitment issues, nor the self love issues. (This boy has a lot of issues okay). I headcanon him as grayro because he seems confused by genuine romantic feelings, and he has these extremely intense feelings for all his friends. As a grayro myself, I relate, and I often find the line between platonic and romantic to be blurry and confusing. Sylvain isn't meant to be the aro stereotype of a promiscuous, vain, hedonistic, and empathy-less person. Just as in the game, he's a lot more than he looks like on surface level. 
> 
> That's probably not how you use a whetstone, but I don't care enough to change it.
> 
> Manette means sea of bitterness. I think that speaks for itself.
> 
> Check out my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/maplmoosemuffin) for more incoherent aro!Sylvain content.


End file.
